Bats silenced
New Brunswick senior circuit sidelined by coronavirus
There will be no senior baseball in Charlottetown this summer.
The New Brunswick Senior Baseball League pulled the plug on the 2020 season due to the coronavirus (COVID19 strain) pandemic during a conference call with team officials Wednesday night.
“It’s disappointing,” said Myles Grady, general manager of the Charlottetown Gaudet’s Auto Body Islanders.
“They’ve tried, but just by delaying it anymore is not going to do it any justice either. There’s too many hoops to go through and hurdles to get over.”
The Islanders took a leave of absence in 2018 before rejoining the five-team league with Moncton, Chatham, Fredericton and Saint John last summer.
“It would have been nice to keep this (momentum) going, and it does hurt, (but) there’s just not a damn thing that we can do about it,” Grady said.
“I know our players want to play so bad and I know it would be a good thing to have senior baseball going.”
Charlottetown was prepared to play this season but had some hurdles it had to overcome, including travelling restrictions and sponsorships.
A couple of the other teams were not prepared to play and that impacted a third team, leaving the league unable to move forward this summer.
Grady has been involved in the discussions for the past couple of months. It has been a rollercoaster of emotions, but he had remained optimistic a season could be possible.
“At times there just seemed to be a light there and then all of a sudden it would go dark again,” he said. “That’s been the nature of this.”
Each team intends on playing in 2021.
The league website shows champions dating back to 1929 with a four-year window in the mid-1980s where Moncton played in the Nova Scotia league.